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I’m Pete LePage. Let’s dive in and see what’s new for developers in Chrome 59!

Headless Chrome

A headless browser is a great tool for running automated tests and server
environments where you don't need to see the rendered output or have a
visible UI shell. For example:

Using Selenium for unit tests against your progressive web app

To create a PDF of a wikipedia page

Inspecting a page with DevTools

Starting in Chrome 59, you can now run headless Chrome. It brings all modern web
platform features provided by Chrome to the command line.

Check out Eric Bidelman’s post on Updates
for full details. He’s got examples on how you can use it to convert pages to
PDF, dump the DOM and how to use it programmatically in Node.

Native notifications on macOS

Chrome has historically included its own notification system for web and
extension developers to show notifications to users. But, we’ve heard from users
and developers alike that they want Chrome to use the native OS notification
system.

Starting in Chrome 59 on mac OS, Chrome will use the native notification system,
improving the user experience and ensuring that the notifications feel more
integrated in the platform. My personal favorite, notifications will now respect
my do not disturb settings.

Image capture API

Capturing high res photos in a web app can be hard. Either the user has to
upload a photo they’ve already taken, or switch from the browser to the camera,
take the photo, switch back to the browser and upload the photo.

With the new Image Capture API in Chrome 59, you have to access the full
resolution capabilities of any available camera. The API provides control of
features such as zoom, brightness, contrast, ISO and even white balance.

Check Sam’s post for full details and
sample code you can use to get started right away.

And more!

The MediaError.message
string provides, if available, any additional error message detail to help
web developers debugging media player errors.

These are just a few of the changes in Chrome 59 for developers.

If you enjoyed this video, check out
Designer vs. Developer,
a new video series that tries to solve the challenges faced when designers
and developers work together.